History WebVideo / ConlangCritic

-->'''jan Misali:''' what is the true nature of this conlang? is the true version the way it’s described by the reference grammar, or is it what was intended by its creator? are mistakes in the official documentation truly part of the language? [[TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers is the word for bush really pronounced /bush/?]][[note]]That's the B sound, the "long U" in English (or the U sound in languages like Spanish and Arabic), the S sound, and the H sound. (An Englishy respelling might be ''booce-[exhale]''.) The IPA transcription for the English word ''bush'' is /bʊʃ/, and the Iqglic word was also supposed to be pronounced with /ʃ/.[[/note]]

* TakeThat: {{Subverted|Trope}} in the Ygyde episode. Misali [[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer clarifies]] that calling Ygyde "the [[{{UsefulNotes/UNIX}} Linux]] of conlangs" isn't a potshot at Linux users, but a direct quote from Ygyde's reference grammar.

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny[[invoked]]: The sentiment paints [[DownplayedTrope some]] of Misali's thoughts on Quenya.
--->'''jan Misali:''' the distinct European-ness of the Elvish languages shouldn’t be overlooked. I understand why this influence exists, and why Tolkien chose to represent his elves this way, it’s just that after a full century of [[HighFantasy fantasy]] languages inspired by Tolkien, stuff like this feels way more boring than it did when it was new.

* {{Irony}}: Points out in his review of Láadan that, despite being designed as a feminist language, it still divides genders into "male" and "not-male" (with no room for nonbinary people).

* [[Literature/NativeTongue Láadan]]

* [[UsefulNotes/TokiPona Toki Pona]]
* [[UsefulNotes/EsperantoTheUniversalLanguage Esperanto]]

Conlangs that we have pages sorta of about, that the series has covered include:

* NoPronunciationGuide: Sometimes a conlang's phonology is unclearly defined, but this is {{averted|Trope}} whenever possible--jan Misali provides every phonetic sound of every conlang he reviews, and sometimes includes a spoken sample.

* CriticalResearchFailure[[invoked]]: With respect to the common knowledge of the [[TargetAudience conlanging community]], several errors are treated this way on the show:
** Using inaccurate terms and descriptions for phonemes, like Vötgil's "glotal approximant" /h/. A similar example from the Loglan episode is a vague, meandering description of /x/, the voiceless velar fricative, that Misali says can be interpreted as various other dorsal and laryngeal consonants.
** Some [=IALs=] are stated to be easy to learn, but have consonant inventories that aren't compatible with commonly spoken natural languages, forcing learners to produce and listen for unfamiliar consonant sounds. Sometimes, a global IAL isn't compatible with ''[[ExaggeratedTrope any]]'' of the natlangs on {{Website/Wikipedia}}'s "List of languages by total number of speakers" article. One such conlang is the widely imitated Esperanto, which Misali notes ''is'' compatible with Polish, [[CreatorProvincialism its creator's native language]].
** Of course, jan Misali himself makes mistakes, which leads to the adoption of the {{tagline}} "the show that gets facts wrong about ''your'' favorite conlang" in the second episode.

%% NOTE: Misali uses he/they pronouns. For consistency's sake, "he" is better.

** Some [=IALs=] are stated to be easy to learn, but have consonant inventories that aren't compatible with commonly spoken natural languages, forcing learners to produce and listen for unfamiliar consonant sounds. Sometimes, a global IAL isn't compatible with ''[[ExaggeratedTrope any]]'' of the natlangs on {{Wiki/Wikipedia}}'s "List of languages by total number of speakers" article. One such conlang is the widely imitated Esperanto, which Misali notes ''is'' compatible with Polish, [[CreatorProvincialism its creator's native language]].

* SignificantNameOverlap: jan Misali [[DeconstructedTrope finds it difficult to introduce the conlang Iqglic]], whose name is pronounced exactly like "English" and was never officially given any way to distinguish the two in spoken speech.

--->You have got to be about [[OverlyNarrowSuperlative the most superficial commentator on con-langues]] [sic] since the idiotic B. Gilson.
--->I was born in 1998 so [[TechnologyMarchesOn I don't know what a radio is]][[invoked]] sorry

** The "What’s the Most Commonly Spoken Language Whose Consonant Inventory Is Incompatible with That of This Particular International Auxiliary Language?" segment.

** To a lesser extent, the rankings of conlangs among Seasons 1 and 2. By Season 3, jan Misali decided to drift away from this methodology, focusing more on how he feels about conlangs individually, as opposed to how he feels about how they stack up compared to one another.

* LetsSeeYouDoBetter: Misali hadn't made a conlang before, but was so disappointed by Futurese that he inflicted this upon himself and started making his own hypothetical future version of English.

** The word ''vore'', due to a freak coincidence being the Lojban word for JustForFun/FortyTwo, such as in the episode on the language, and then when using 3042 in the [[https://youtu.be/TpHqHuXvUek?t=195 Volapük]] episode.

** The word ''vore'', due to a freak coincidence being the Lojban word for JustForFun/FortyTwo.

* {{Irony}}: Points out in his review of Laadan that, despite being designed as a feminist language, it still divides genders into "male" and "not-male" (with no room for nonbinary people).

** Several excerpts from around the top of Anthony [=McCarthy=]'s comment thread, including:

Conlangs the series has covered include:

* SomethingCompletelyDifferent:
** Included in the Conlang Critic series playlist is the jocular "The Perfect Language [Epic]". It has a different host, self-referred to as "jan [[WesternAnimation/MonstersInc Mike Wazowski]]" and "jan Mike Sullivan", and recorded using OBS and Windows Notepad instead of a slideshow format. Although the video is purportedly a review of English, the language described is oligosynthetic, has only four phonemes, and is written with punctuation symbols and the digit 5 instead of Latin letters.
** The Viossa episode uses a different format due to covering an artificial pidgin with no rigid or written rules. The episode plays out like an audio-based {{documentary}}, cutting between interviews of several members of Viossa's community. Ultimately, jan Misali expresses that [[VideoReviewShow rating the language]] would be missing its point, so the verdict boils down to "Viossa reminded me why I love linguistics."

%% NOTE: Misali uses he/they pronouns; each example should use only one of the two for comprehensibility's sake but we're not aware of any further preference beyond this.

* BoringButPractical: The five vowel system, /i u e o a/. jan Misali calls this "the most sensible vowel system for an IAL to use, and there’s not really any reason to use anything else, unless you wanna go for a three vowel system." Thus, they rapidly run out of interesting things to say about it.

* BuffySpeak: In the intro to the Iqglic episode, Misali has some trouble introducing the language, due to it being pronounced the same as "English", which they explain thus:

** Of course, jan Misali themself makes mistakes, which leads to the adoption of the {{tagline}} "the show that gets facts wrong about ''your'' favorite conlang" in the second episode.
* DamnedByFaintPraise: In the Lingwa de Planeta episode, they think the titular IAL is "halfway there to being better than just ‘okay’".

* ExistentialHorror: The High Valyrian episode has very light undertones of this, compared to the unquestioned formula of prior episodes. The script repeatedly dips into questioning the point of the series, the self-perceived lack of meaningful commentary, jan Misali's qualifications, whether he is burnt out on the series, and why the episode was so highly requested. However, this meta-commentary is [[EnforcedTrope mostly to pad out the video]], as Misali didn't have enough to say about the conlang itself. Before the episode came out, they had [[ForegoneConclusion already announced]] that they would be taking back creative control as to which conlangs are reviewed, and how often Conlang Critic episodes are made.

* {{Irony}}: Points out in their review of Laadan that, despite being designed as a feminist language, it still divides genders into "male" and "not-male" (with no room for nonbinary people).
* LetsSeeYouDoBetter: Misali hadn't made a conlang before, but was so disappointed by Futurese that they inflicted this upon themself and started making their own hypothetical future version of English.

* NoPronunciationGuide: Sometimes a conlang's phonology is unclearly defined, but this is {{averted|Trope}} whenever possible--jan Misali provides every phonetic sound of every conlang they review, and sometimes includes a spoken sample.

--->You have got to be about [[OverlyNarrowSuperlative the most superficial commentator on con-langues]] since the idiotic B. Gilson.

* DeadpanSnarker: To the point that some viewers find it hard to tell if Misali is joking sometimes, with clarifications made in at least one follow-up video on the channel.
-->'''jan Misali:''' And even though it does fail to be completely un-sexist, that's not really any worse than Lojban failing to treat all country names the same way, or aUI failing to make sense, or Vötgil failing to have any redeeming qualities whatsoever.

* AllLowercaseLetters: Misali's preferred method of typing. Downplayed with how they write their username--"jan" is in lowercase, but "Misali" itself is properly capitalized. This is because it's in Toki Pona; "jan" is actually just a word meaning "person", and the phrase "jan Misali" means "the person named Misali", which is necessary because of how Toki Pona treats names. It also doesn't apply to proper nouns or the word "I", and section titles are set in all caps.

''Conlang Critic'' is an online VideoReviewShow created by Mitch Halley, a.k.a. jan Misali. It reviews various [[{{Conlang}} constructed languages]] (conlangs), while Misali gives his thoughts and opinions about them. There is a [[https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuYLhuXt4HrQqnfSceITmv6T_drx1hN84 playlist of the full series]], starting with [[https://youtu.be/l-unefmAo9k Episode One: Lojban]].